India’s First Glass Mosque Opens

Shillong, Oct 22 : India has opened its first glass mosque and the biggest in the northeast Meghalaya state that is expected to draw hundreds of tourists to the marvelous worshipping house.

“The mosque will mark the unity of all religions,” Union Minister of State for Minority Affairs Vincent H Pala told The Times of India.

Pala also highlighted the “uniqueness” of the mosque and its “spirit”.Built in Shillong city, the capital of Meghalaya state, Madina Masjid is the first glass mosque in India.

The four-storey building - 120 feet high and 61 feet wide — stands inside an Idgah Complex in the city’s Lahan area and is close to the garrison grounds along the Umshyrpi River.

At night, the mosque’s glasswork glows and glitters.

Being the biggest mosque in the area, the 120-feet Medina Mosque will allow women to offer prayers and also house an orphanage.

It also includes a new theological institute that would host Islamic teachings and a library that would have books on comparative religious studies.

Attending the inauguration event, legislator Syeedullah Nongrong, who is also president of the Shillong Muslim Union, praised the new mosque role in attracting new tourists to the city.

“The mosque will also be a tourist attraction,” Nongrong said.

Muslims account for 160 million of India's 1.1 billion people, the world's third-largest Muslim population after those of Indonesia and Pakistan.

Indian Muslims have long suffered decades of social and economic neglect and oppression.

They are under-represented in public sector jobs, register lower educational levels and hit by higher unemployment rates.

Mizoram Plans To Setup Village Advisors

Aizawl, Oct 19 : The Mizoram government is toying with a proposal to set up advisory bodies in each of the 15 village councils in northeast Mizoram along its borders with Manipur as the stalemate on holding elections to these councils continues.

The state election commission has announced three dates for elections to the village councils — 13 in Aizawl district and two in Kolosib district — since February 23, the last one being scheduled for October 25. Home minister R. Lalzirliana had yesterday said the polling had to be kept in abeyance repeatedly as the militant Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic), which is opposed to the polls, was threatening voters.

State election commissioner C. Ropianga said not a single nomination paper had been filed for the October 25 polling — the last date for submitting the papers was on Monday — because of the threat posed by the Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic) to political parties and voters of the 15 villages.

The HPC (D) was set up in 2002 after cadres of the HPC surrendered in 1994. The HPC had accepted a development council in the Hmar-inhabited areas instead of the district council it had demanded. The HPC (D) is insisting on a district council and is opposing the polls in a bid to drive home its demand.

Official sources today said the process of conducting elections to these village councils “had been stopped” and the matter would be referred to the cabinet of the Congress-ruled state government, led by chief minister Lalthanhawla for a decision on how to break the impasse.

A senior official of the state home department said the final decision to end this stalemate was likely to be taken by Lalthanhawla soon.

Mizoram Bans Gutkha

Aizawl, Oct 19 : Mizoram government has imposed a blanket ban on sale of gutka, paan masala and zarda paan in the state.

All shops in the state have been ordered to stop selling these products within a month after which those keeping or selling gutka and other tobacco products would be punished, an official statement said.


The government imposed the ban by invoking Food Safety and Standards (Prohibition and Restrictions on Sales) Regulations, 2011.

"The prohibition of gutka products is expected to make Mizoram healthier and cleaner," a health department official said.

Micro-ATM using Aadhaar Data Delivers Cash To Tripura Villagers

Burakha (Tripura), Oct 19 : Rampati Debbarma, a 71-year-old tribal woman of Burakha village in West Tripura district on Thursday pressed her finger on an Aadhaar-enabled micro-ATM to get her old-age pension in cash.

Rampati is not alone, but hundreds of old-age pensioners of this village collected their pensions in the same way with the help of Aadhaar-enabled payment system introduced here on Thursday.

“Earlier, I used to walk about 10 km from my village to Mandwi Block headquarters for withdrawal of my pension from Gramin Bank, but today I got it at my doorstep,” she said.

The Unique ID Authority of India in collaboration with United Bank of India and Tripura Grameen Bank on Thursday undertook the field trial of Aadhaar-enabled payment system with online authentication of biometric of the beneficiaries in Mandwi Block.

“Our endeavour was successful today,” Dinesh Mushahary, Chairman of Gramin Bank Tripura, who was present during cash transfer, said.

Mushahary appealed to the people to register their Aadhaar numbers with the banks so that people could get their money directly.

Biodiversity Boon For Arunachal Tribes

By G. Ananthakrishnan

Villagers from Arunachal Pradesh sport Hor4nbill beak headgear during a side event at the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Hyderabad on Thursday. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

At a presentation on the sidelines of COP 11 they reveal the result of their efforts

Arunachal Pradesh is helping tribal residents use ‘globally significant medicinal plants’ for livelihood security through community management of forests. The State has a staggering 500 medicinal plant species, and more than half the forests come under the control of the indigenous people.

At a presentation on indigenous and new approaches to natural resource management in the State, held on the sidelines of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity here on Thursday, tribal practitioners said they had set up seven Medicinal Plant Conservation Areas (MPCAs).

According to tribal beliefs in Arunachal Pradesh, dense forests and big trees are looked upon as ancestral souls, and hornbill hunting is banned during the breeding season. The tiger is sacred as it is the ‘brother of Tani, the first humans on earth’.

However, as a presentation by the INSPIRE Network for Environment made clear, large tracts of forest had been lost in Arunachal due to development of pastoral lands, agriculture expansion, shifting cultivation and demand for firewood and timber. INSPIRE is helping residents in Western Arunachal’s Tawang-Kameng area form a large arboretum for Rhododendron arboreum, an evergreen tree with bright red or pink flowers that holds the soil against landslips. Its flowers are used to produce squash under a plan partnered by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust.

Medicinal plants have come to the rescue of communities, and hence they vigorously guard against the removal of plant and animal species by outsiders. Hake-Tari, Salari, Laa and Wannu are examples of community forests, said Tapu Gapak, member-secretary of the Medicinal Plants Board of Arunachal Pradesh.

Arunachal Pradesh is attempting to show that community ownership can help produce incomes from biodiversity sustainably. There is strong support for conservation of fauna, too.

The Nature Conservation Foundation has been working in the area around the Pakke Tiger Reserve with the Nyishi tribal people, successfully persuading them against hunting hornbills for casques, which form part of headgear. Fibreglass substitutes are accepted. Tribal residents have participated in nest protection schemes, and local councils have seized guns from villages.

An adoption scheme launched by NCF for the hornbills has attracted 49 urban patrons, who paid between Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 1-lakh to protect the birds in nesting sites. A dozen birds have fledged through this scheme. NCF researcher Amruta Rane said that in the next phase an assessment of abundance of nesting sites and availability of some 45 fruit tree species favoured by hornbills would be carried out.

A pictorial guide to significant medicinal plants of Arunachal Pradesh authored by D. Yonggam, with information about their use, was released here by MLA Bamang Felix.

Several tribal participants were present at the discussion wearing wood casque headgear, demonstrating how hornbills could be spared.

ZUF Rebels 'Rape' 4 School girls in Manipur

Imphal, Oct 19 : Four tribal schoolgirls were allegedly raped by two cadres of the underground Zeliangrong United Front (ZUF) who had defected in Manipur's Tamenglong district on October 5.

The rapes were known after the girls came to Imphal and spoke to reporters at a conference on Wednesday. A senior ZUF leader said both the cadres had defected from the party and there was a price on their heads.

One of the culprits shot himself with his gun in front of one of the victims inside the quarters of a chowkidar of the Manipur irrigation and flood control department office at Khoupum village in Tamenglong.

The four Zeliangrong girls are students of classes VI-X. They were returning from school when they heard gunshots. They were afraid of being hit by stray bullets and took shelter in a nearby house, the girls told reporters.

"Minutes after the firing stopped, we came out of the house. Just then, the two cadres carrying guns shot at the ground near us. They dragged us inside the chowkidar's quarters," one of the girls said.

The cadres locked two of the schoolgirls in the toilet and raped the other two, said a girl. Later, they dragged out the two girls from the toilet and raped them, too.

After raping the girls, one of the cadres pointed his gun to his head and threatened to kill himself along with one of the victims. He then shot himself and the terrified girl managed to run out of the room.

On hearing the gunshot, the other cadre rushed out and fled, the victims said.

No FDI in Mining in Meghalaya

Shillong, Oct 19 : The Meghalaya government Thursday said it had done away with foreign direct investment (FDI) in the mining sector after several organisations protested the controversial Meghalaya Mines and Minerals Policy, 2012 that was approved by the state cabinet Oct 5.

"The government has done away with that clause in the Mines and Mineral Policy that encourages foreign direct investment in the mining sector," Deputy Chief Minister in-charge of mining and geology Bindo Lanong told IANS.

The state cabinet has however approved rat-hole coal mining in the state.

Rat-hole mining is a primitive method that entails clearing ground vegetation and digging pits ranging from five to 100 square metres to reach the coal seams.

Several organisations under the banner of Social Organisations of Meghalaya against Land Alienation (SOMALA) had earlier demanded that the FDI clause be repealed from the Meghalaya Mines and Minerals Policy 2012.

The opposition National People's Party and Meghalaya state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party had criticised the earlier decision of the state cabinet to allow FDI in mining, saying that it would have a negative impact on small-time miners and lead to the total sellout of the state's natural resources.

Meghalaya has a total coal reserve of 640 million tonnes, besides 5,000 million tonnes of limestone reserve and other minerals like Uranium.

"FDI is a central subject and the state government cannot decide alone on this issue and if the government felt it necessary to go for FDI in the mining sector with an intention to ensure job opportunities to the tribesmen of the state, we would then seek the central government's consent on the matter," Lanong said.

"It is their (SOMALA's) misconception on the policy, but the fact of the matter is that the government had decided to do away with the clause that sought to encourage FDI in the mining sector," the deputy chief minister clarified.

Neiphiu Rio Wants Emotional Integration of Nagas

New Delhi, Oct 19 : Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said if physical integration of contiguous Naga-inhabited territories is not possible, there should at least be emotional integration to resolve the Naga insurgency.

Perhaps, Rio has in mind a body that unites the Nagas irrespective of which state they live while thinking aloud of an emotional integration. Already, there is the Naga Ho Ho, an apex tribal council where various Naga tribes are represented. Last month, a Naga Ho Ho delegation met various political leaders here for a peaceful solution. While working out a solution, the government could mull institutionalizing the Naga Ho Ho, said a source drawing an analogy with the SGPC that unites Sikhs in matters of religion.

Peace talks began with the NSCN (IM) 15 years ago. In the last two years, interlocutors led by 1972 batch IAS officer R S Pandey could impress upon the rebel leaders that though the Constitution allows redrawing state boundaries for Naga integration, it is fraught with practical problems. Also, India won't agree to "secession of an inch of its territory". There are indications that the rebels have understood India's imperatives.

For an "honourable settlement" of the issue, the Centre can concede certain special rights in governance and development relating to Naga identity, culture, land and autonomy, said a source. The Centre is also mulling autonomous councils in Naga inhabited areas in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh like those for Bodos in Assam or Gorkhas in West Bengal, said a source.

For this, skilful negotiation in a short time between the Centre, concerned states, interlocutors and the Nagas is required for a win-win solution acceptable to all. "The solution should be inclusive," said Rio.

He insisted this is the most opportune time for the Indian government to resolve the "Naga political issue". "The people of Nagaland want peace. They are fed up with extortion and illegal activities. The Naga nationalist underground groups have never come as close to the state and central government as now," he said. Leader of Naga insurgent group NSCN (IM), Th Muivah, too, is ready for settlement.

Rio said this was the most "opportune time" for the Centre to come up with a permanent solution to the 65-year-old struggle. "If this opportunity is missed, I don't know whether we will get such a chance in our lifetime," said Rio.

For an embattled UPA government suffering from policy paralysis, it seems to be an uphill task.